Queer Cinema(s)

First of all there is Basile Matin, a young man who dreamt of Fafatao-Laoupo, symbol of the penultimate sleep… Now he knows that he will die if he ever falls asleep again in his life. The problem is, that at his age you still like to think that you have your life before you. And then there is Igor, another type altogether. He works a little and studies almost not at all… But he doesnt have any money and he is bored. That is why Basiles story is terribly interesting to him, even if he doesn’t really understand it. (amazon.com)Read More »

Merab has been training since a young age at the National Georgian Ensemble with his dance partner Mary. His world is suddenly turned upside down when the charismatic and carefree Irakli arrives and becomes both his strongest rival and desire. In this conservative setting Merab finds himself having to break free and risk it all.Read More »

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In 1931 the Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein travels to Guanajuato to direct his film Que viva México. There he encounters a new culture and its dealings with death; he also discovers another revolution – and his own body. Peter Greenaway depicts Eisenstein as an eccentric artist who travels to Mexico filled with the hubris of being an internationally celebrated star director. Once there, he gets into difficulties with his American financier, the novelist Upton Sinclair. At the same time he begins, in the simultaneously joyful and threatening foreign land, to re-evaluate his homeland and the Stalinist regime. And, in doing so, he undergoes the transition from a conceptual filmmaker into an artist fascinated by the human condition. Under his gaze, the signs, impressions, religious and pagan symbols of Mexican culture assemble themselves anew.Read More »

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After his mother’s sudden death, Socrates, a 15-year-old living on the margins of São Paulo’s coast, must survive on his own while coming to terms with his grief.Read More »

Argentinean filmmaker Edgardo Cozarinsky’s 2005 feature Night Watch (or Ronda Nocturna) is a searing, scorching character study of Victor (Gonzalo Heredia), a young hustler dealing and pimping on the streets of Buenos Aires, with a calm demeanor that masks a nasty, virulent temper. When a series of external threats — including an attempted homicide and a broken affair — rob Victor of his bearings, he must suddenly reassess his values and priorities by taking a long, difficult journey into the dark night of his own soul. Night Watch co-stars Rafael Ferro and Moro Anghileri. Cozarinsky wrote the original script.Read More »

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La Raulito is marginalized and feels that all of her actions are called into question but cannot understand why. Is it possible that she represents something that everyone fears? (“There are tomboys… but what was that that just passed by”, people say). In any case it is curious that the places where la Raulito encounters a single friend (María Vaner) should be a cabaret [rather than ???] in jail or in her home which is dominated by an abusive husband? What the film stresses again and again is that there is no place for la Raulito in a society that imposes strict [gender] roles. Toward this end, Murúa constantly undermines any definite characterization of the sexual identity of his protagonist… a decision that respects her transgressive, defiant conditionRead More »

Two old friends reunite for a quietly revelatory overnight camping trip in this breakout feature from Kelly Reichardt, a microbudget study of character and masculinity that introduced many viewers to one of contemporary American cinema’s most independent artists. As expectant father Mark (Daniel London) and nomadic Kurt (Will Oldham) travel by car and foot into the woods in search of some secluded hot springs, their fumbling attempts to reconnect keep butting up against the limits of their friendship and the reality of how much their paths have diverged since their shared youth. Adapted from a short story by Jonathan Raymond and accompanied by an atmospheric Yo La Tengo score, Old Joy is a contemplative, wryly observed triumph whose modest scale belies the richness of its insight.Read More »

“Ce vieux rêve qui bouge est sans doute le meilleur film du festival de Cannes”, (Jean-Luc Godard, mai 2001)

From Time Out Film Guide
A young guy turns up at a rundown factory to dismantle some kind of machine before the place closes in a week. In the process, he gets to talk to the understandably morose staff about how they plan to face the future. About work, economics, class, sex, money, happiness and a whole lot more, this unassuming, sometimes funny and always surprising film has been hailed by Godard – perhaps the most sensible thing he’s done in years. It’s near perfect, without an ounce of narrative fat or stylistic gristle, and utterly relevant.Read More »

The earlier of Guiraudie’s two medium-length films looks forward to both No Rest for the Brave and The King of Escape with its tale of a young woman who falls in love with a gay shepherd. During their wanderings, they cross paths with a bandit – played by the director himself – as well as the bounty hunter who’s pursuing him. Sunshine for the Scoundrels announces Guiraudie’s fascination with loners and oddballs, his extravagant imagination and his affection for the rough landscape of France’s Massif Central, whose ruggedness gives the film the flavor of an eccentric Western.Read More »